Keen Buffy
by karabair
Summary: Buffy and Wes are good cops, Spike might be a bad one. Someone we know is dead, someone else we know might have done it. All-human AU, blending police procedural with BuffyAngel fic.
1. Impending Disasters

Title: Keen Buffy

Description: Aspiring Los Angeles Police Department detective Buffy Summers faces the challenge of her life when she embarks on an exchange program to the Criminal Investigation Division in Yorkshire, England.

Characters/pairings: Buffy/Spike, Wes/Fred, and various others. Actually, this first section is mostly Wesley & Buffy. Not sure how that happened. More chapters to come over the next week!

Rating: Just PG-13 so far; I might change my mind as it goes on.

Thanks to: My many many years of reading British police procedurals. I'm most indebted to Reginald Hill, whose character Peter Pascoe reminds me a lot of Wesley in mid-era _Angel_. Also a shout-out to Peter Robinson's Alan Banks series and Ruth Rendell's Inspector Wexford books. And of course to the Fox series _Keen Eddie_, although that really inspired nothing aside from the idea of an American cop detailed to the UK.

Disclaimers: My understanding of British law, procedure, and police hierarchy comes entirely from reading detective novels and may be completely inaccurate or out of date.I. _Impending Disasters_

"It's the end of the world," said Wesley Wyndam-Pryce.

"Now, there." Winifred Burkle reached onto his desk and gently placed her fingers on the back of his hand. "I'm sure it's not as bad as all that."

"Yes, it is," Wesley insisted, "I can't imagine a way that it could be any worse." But he was already lying. It could easily have been worse. The most beautiful woman he had ever met could not be sitting across from him. She could not be pressing her hand against his skin. As the head of the divisional forensics lab, she could have trusted an underling to bring crime scene reports by the police station. Surely, he thought, the occasion didn't completely justify her presence in person. They had been friends almost since she came to Yorkshire, but lately it had seemed like something more might be growing between them. And today, she had made a point to stop by his office, could she really be sending him a signal, could she be trying to say. . .

"I swear, you remind me so much of cousin Cory from Tulsa." She patted his hand and stood up. "Both of you worry too much."

_No,_ Wesley thought, looking down at his desk and pretending to shuffle papers around, in order to hide the flush rising to his cheeks. _This day could definitely not be any worse._ "It's not an idle worry, Fred." He heard himself getting testy, but couldn't seem to stop. "I'm at an age where I should be looking at promotion from sergeant to detective inspector. It shows exactly what this department thinks of me that, instead, I'm being assigned to baby-sit a tourist who wants to play detective constable. An _American_ tourist," he added with distaste.

Fred's brow wrinkled, and she didn't sound entirely playful as she said, "You have something against Americans?"

"No," he said hastily. "Of course I didn't mean you. The department recruited you because they had heard such good things about your work in London while you were taking your degree. This Bunny Saunders is no more than that most American of American things, a photo opportunity."

"Buffy Summers," Fred corrected. "And she graduated at the top of her class from the police academy in Los Angeles, and served two years in uniform. . .what? So I read about her in the paper."

"And let me guess, there was a picture. Because it was, as I mentioned, a photo opportunity." He shook his head. "I can guarantee I won't have the chance to do any real casework as long as I'm stuck supervising her." He shook his head. "And it's not as though I'm being punished for anything I've done. It's all about bloody politics."

"Well, you could. . ." Fred spoke hesitantly, and he heard it in her voice, that need to reconcile, the belief in talking things over and solving them rationally and making them better. It was the most American thing about her, and somehow it led into a fantasy where she was lying across his desk, pulling at the buttons of her conservative slacks, guiding his hand into her blouse and saying. . ."You could talk to your father."

"No!" Wesley felt actual pain as he winced from the suggestion. She looked at him curiously, and he realized how loudly he had spoken.

"I just meant because he's in politics," she said quietly.

_I'm sure this is the last friendly visit she pays at the office,_ he thought. And then, _Cousin Cory from Tulsa_? Wesley tried to sound calmer as he explained, "But you see, that's exactly the thing that I can't do, because if I do it, it only proves that I'm what they think I am. Some berk with a posh education and an influential father."

"Wesley. . ." Fred stepped closer to him, and he couldn't help it, he loved the way she said his name, he wanted it to mean something. "Wesley, you know you're a good detective. What do you care what other people think?"

"I. . ." He started to answer, to say all the very good reasons he had learned that image mattered for a young detective sergeant trying to get the job done, but at the moment he couldn't think of any of them.

Voices started to clamor out in the squadroom, and Fred whirled around and sprinted to the doorway. "That must be her."

Wesley jumped to his feet, not bothering to hide his own curiosity, and came to stand behind Fred. "Oh God," he said. "This is even worse than I thought."

"Why?" Fred asked.

"Look at her," he said. "I think she's wearing leather trousers."

Taking in the rumpled suits on the men in the squadroom, the pressed khakis and Oxford shirts on the handful of women, Buffy Summers immediately began to suspect that her pants were a mistake. She had spent her two years at the LAPD as a uniformed officer, and she was so excited to break out of the boxy, unflattering blues that she just might have overcompensated in the direction of form-fitting. It was true that the leather was functional; she had opted for a motorbike instead of testing her ever-sketchy driving skills on the wrong side of the highway, and her handful of biker friends on the L.A. force assured her that cowhide was the only way to keep out the wind. Still, she had to admit that the English locale stirred certain Diana Rigg-on-_The Avengers_ fantasies. But based on the looks she got walking into the squadroom, it seemed that her new colleagues were thinking less Emma Peel, and more Mistress of Pain.

The most horrified look came from a tall dark-haired man, who wore glasses and a most definitely non-rumpled suit. Aside from the expression of dismay, he looked like such a photospread from British GQ that, when he offered her a hand and said _Detective Constable Summers, I presume? Sergeant Pryce, _she almost looked around for hidden cameras to see if she was being _Punk'd_. She was supposed to be trained by a crochety old man like Inspector Morse or Inspector Frost –- she had watched a bunch of these shows on BBC America while waiting to see if she had won the overseas assignment. Now it looked like she was going to be riding around in a car with Pierce Brosnan instead of John Thaw. Which, considering her history, and the situation that had helped to bring her here, was so very very not funny.

Then the woman next to the sergeant – dark-haired and slim, a few years older than Buffy, perhaps – offered her own hand, and said, "Fred Burkle, it's so great to meet you." Buffy was practicing the new game of trying to place a person's origin based on accent, so it took her a moment to register that this one screamed, "Texas."

"You're American?" Buffy said.

"My, and they told me you were keen," said Mr. British-GQ, so mildly that it took Buffy a moment to be certain of the sarcasm. But the woman called Fred cast a glance at him that told Buffy this wasn't his normal attitude. He seemed to catch the look and then make a redoubled effort at civil behavior. "Dr. Burkle is from Texas," he said with forced joviality. "But we try not to hold it against her."

Dr. Burkle seemed to swerve away from the sergeant's jest. Pryce kept his eyes on her, while she focused on Buffy. "We should have an American girls' night out. I'll bring you the adaptor plugs nobody told you that you would need."

"Great," Buffy stammered, smiling because Fred had anticipated her greatest frustration on moving into her new flat –- the fact that none of the appliances she had brought from L.A. had plugs to fit the outlets. "But don't you need them?"

"Oh," she dismissed, "I make my own. Just a little something I like to throw together."

Pryce cleared his throat. "Fred, I'll need to take DC Summers to the superintendent's office, so. . ."

"It's OK," she said, still looking at Buffy. "Just call me soon." She patted the sergeant's shoulder. "You can get my info from Wesley here." She winked. "We're buds."

"Yes, of course," he said, "Very good," and his eyes followed Dr. Burkle long after he should have turned his attention to Buffy. _So that's how that's gonna be,_ she thought, and had a brief flash of sympathy before he turned his eyes on her. "Constable Summers, you seem to be aware that this is a plainclothes assignment. Perhaps you should consider some clothes that are rather, well, _plainer_."

"Oh, don't be such a prig, Wyndsley," a voice boomed from behind them. "I think the lady looks quite fetching." She turned to see a distinguished-looking older man in a professorish tweed suit, with a clipped gray beard. He offered his hand, "Detective Superintendent Quentin Travers." His eyes traveled over her in a way that she didn't particularly like, and she decided that she would be wearing khakis tomorrow. The sergeant's disapproval might actually have egged her on, but Travers' praise had the opposite effect. Didn't English people know about reverse psychology? "My office, Pryce," he said, looking over her at the younger man. "Or were you planning on standing out here all day?"

"Of course." The sergeant gave a thin smile that Buffy immediately pegged as his very special English version of "Go fuck yourself." She wondered if Travers knew this.

As the three walked toward the super's office, he explained. "DS Pryce reports to me. Actually, he reports to the Detective Inspector who reports to the Detective Chief Inspector who reports to me. The British system tends toward hierarchy, I'm afraid. But as you present a special case, DC Summers, you should never be afraid to come directly to the top of the food chain. Keep the sergeant on his toes." Then he smiled his own fuck-you smile back at Pryce. _Yup,_, Buffy decided. _This is an old game between them, and neither of them is going to come out and say it._. She wondered what the story was, what kind of long-running drama she had walked into the middle of.

"Don't you agree, DC Summers?" Travers asked her.

"Yes, sir." Buffy nodded, wondering what she had just agreed to. She had been busy trying to unravel the dynamic between these men, while the superintendent was talking. And talking. And talking. All right, so she had never been a very good listener. She would be able to process everything better by doing it. And she could get the crib notes from Sergeant Pryce. Somehow she imagined that, if there were any important no-nos in the speech, she would be hearing them from the sergeant. Repeatedly.

But now she tried to tune in, as Travers seemed to be speaking about their first assignment. ". . .in order to ease the constable into her new duties and familiarize her with procedures, you'll be assigned some old cases to review. Re-canvass with a fresh set of eyes, see if there is anything the original investigators missed." He nodded toward a box of files on his desk. "I'd like you to start with Ethan Rayne."

"Old cases," said Pryce. "Of course, sir." At least, his voice said this. His eyes said _Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you._ "We'll just need to speak to the original investigating officer so that we don't duplicate. . ."

Travers waved a hand dismissively. "When I say fresh, I mean fresh. I would prefer to leave Sergeant Harker completely out of this."

Now came the first crack in Pryce's perfect composure. "Harker??" He said. "You're asking me. . .us. . .to go over ground that's been trod by William Harker? I don't suppose --" Casting a look at Buffy, he said, "Sir, I would prefer to discuss this in private."

"You have nothing to say to me," Travers said coldly. "That cannot be said in front of Constable Summers. If she hasn't heard, she certainly will."

"Well, then," Pryce continued. "I don't suppose this has anything to do with avoiding massive lawsuits and the possibility of every case that _former_ Sergeant Harker touched being thrown out of court? You see, Miss Summers," he said. "Even in Yorkshire we have our little one-man Ramparts scandal."

"Sergeant Harker had his differences with Yorkshire CID," Travers said. "But we parted on amiable terms, and there is no reason to poison our new trainee against him." He leveled a finger at her. "Don't believe everything you read in the newspaper." Looking up at Pryce, he said, "I don't buy this William the Bloody nonsense for a moment."

"Speaking respectfully, Sir?" said Pryce. "That's because you don't know Will Harker the way I do."

"Oh, yes, Wyndsley," Travers answered. "You know everyone, don't you? Which reminds me. . ." He reached into his pocket and drew out an old-fashioned men's watch. "Nine twenty-two, Greenwich Mean Time. You have your assignment. I'll be interested in exactly how long it takes for me to hear from your father."

Buffy hadn't thought it would be possible for the sergeant to grow any stiffer, but he managed to straighten his tall form even more, and his face went white as he said, "That won't be happening, sir."

"See to it, then," he answered. Rather than dismissing them, he simply looked down at his desk and started writing, as if they weren't there. Buffy looked at Pryce for a cue. He nodded at the box of files, then the door, so she lifted them, then followed him.

When they were in the hall, she said, "Brass, huh? Jackasses on either side of the pond."

"What's that?" He kept walking, briskly, letting her struggle to keep up with his long legs. Over his shoulder, he said, "I'd advise you to show a little more respect."

"Hey, if I could do the 'say polite things but obviously want to rip each other's throats out' kind of respect as well as you guys? I'd be all over that. But I'm not British enough to compete, so I just have to say what I think. Who's your father?"

Pryce stopped so that Buffy and her box ran into him. He turned the sharp eyes on her now. Blue, she saw, they were very blue. "You're joking, right?" She shook her head. "You've met him. Had your picture taken with him. The local member of Parliament? It was his bright idea for Yorkshire to participate in this exchange program."

"Oh, him?" she said. "That Roger Windmill guy?"

"Wyndam-Pryce, though I've managed to avoid using the whole ridiculous moniker. Most of the time." He shook his head to dismiss the subject, and pointed at her box of files. "Let us talk about these cases."

"OK," said Buffy. "Who's William Harker?"

"Someone for us to avoid. And by us, I particularly mean you." He shook his head. "Will Harker could get his teeth in a case and worry it like a terrier with a rat. And leave it in about as big a mess. But then, if it didn't tie in to one of his pet obsessions, there's a chance he never looked into it at all. So as for this Rayne case, it may be a Chernobyl or a Siberia."

"Any chance it's something we can actually solve?"

"That," he said, looking at her file. "Is what we'll have to see about, Detective Summers."

"You know, you can call me Buffy."

"No," Pryce said, with the first hint of a smile that wasn't exactly a 'Fuck-you.' "Not with a straight face, I can't. Will Summers do?"

"Yes, Wyndsley." She smiled with false innocence.

"If your blasted colonial informality can't get wrap your tongue around sergeant, 'Wesley' will be fine."

"Any chance this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship?"

Wesley leveled his gaze at her. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves."

TBC

5 merry-makers or make me merry 


	2. Chance Meetings

Lotsa Buffy, Lotsa Wes. AU-Spike and AU-Giles show up in this one.

Chapter 2: Chance Meetings

Buffy hefted the box of paperwork and stepped into the parking garage, looking for the car Sergeant Pryce had described. She had spent the morning filling out forms in triplicate, memorizing the instructions on other forms, and glancing longingly at the Rayne casefile. But first things first, the sergeant insisted. She fantasized about spilling white out over his way-too-expensive-for-a-cop shoes, but just when her teeth were on edge, he proposed taking a lunch break at the local pub. "Where all the real work gets done," he said, and she thought he was kidding, until he dropped the box into her arms and handed her his car keys.

Of course, she couldn't actually find his car. Wesley had stayed back to check out with the desk sergeant, and all these bland grey and black English vehicles looked the same. She hadn't really expected to ride around in a Cooper Mini with the Union Jack painted on the roof, but did Yorkshire police have to be so boring? She couldn't imagine any of the L.A. cops she knew being caught dead in these things.

Which led to thoughts of Liam and his convertible, and that last day at the reservoir, the wind in her hair, the smell of meat on the grill because whatever else you could say about the man, he made a great bloody burger. And the way they had both agreed that they needed space, that he was still a married man and needed to see what might happen with Kate, and Connor, and God knew her own father was in Spain with his stupid secretary, and Buffy didn't think she had it in her to be the other woman. . . but Liam, and his eyes and his arms and the way he was always trying to do the right thing, to make everybody happy but himself. _Buffy, sometimes I think that if I was ever happy for a minute, the world would spin off its axis, and I've never met anyone who makes me happy the way you do, and I think that means we need to be apart. _Liam and the way he could make her feel like a pathetic lost little girl, not by anything that was his fault, just by loving her, and why hadn't anybody ever told her that love was a curse as often as it was a blessing and. . .

A footfall sounded behind her. Bracing herself, she moved one hand to her nightstick and called, "Who's there?" Buffy had always hated carrying a gun, but for a moment she missed it. Another footstep echoed, this time seeming to come from the other direction, and then a haunting whistle rose into the air. She recognized the tune, "Rain – drops keep fall- ing on my head."

"Hello?" she demanded, and at the same time the name on the murder file rose into her mind. _Rayne_. "Who's there?" she repeated.

"If I'm not mistaken, it's the new American bird. Fresh blood." The accent was city. London, probably. Light years from the clipped BBC tones of her sergeant. She turned around, slowly, three-hundred-sixty degrees, trying to make out the source of the voice. "Fresh blood's missing her gun, I wager. I never did understand why this country refused to properly arm its policemen. Particularly its policewomen. Leaves them vulnerable to those would do them harm."

"I don't need any gun." She set the files on the floor and lifted the nightstick. "Don't like the things. Hardly ever helpful. This stick I know how to use. And I was the city police athletic league judo and karate champion two years running."

"They have a girls' division? How enlightened. Of course," he sighed. "Hands or arms, you can't hit the thing you can't see." Now the voice was clearly behind her, and she turned to see a man stepping out of the shadows. The glow of a cigarette lit his long menacing face, high cheekbones skeletal in the orange light. His long black coat moved with his stride as he approached her, stopping only to ash his cigarette on the roof of a car. "I've got a message for your boss, fresh blood." Buffy planted her feet and squared her shoulders forward. "Relax, love. I'm one of the good guys."

"That's open to question." Sergeant Pryce's voice rang from across the garage. "If you have a message, Harker, give it to me. Leave my men out of this."

"Men?" The stranger mouthed at Buffy, and raised an eyebrow. The brows were dark, but his hair was a rather extraordinary shade of bleach blonde, with dark roots growing in.

_Harker,_ she thought. _William the Bloody?_ She could imagine him as a cop-gone-bad easily enough. Although, she had come onto the LAPD long after the Ramparts scandal broke, she had met a few holdovers, officers who weren't quite deep enough in the morass to lose their jobs, but who had come out less than squeaky clean. Others who had gone so deep undercover they couldn't find their way up anymore. "You're Sergeant Harker?"

"Former," called Pryce, moving toward them.

Harker leaned toward Buffy and offered his hand. "Call me Spike."

"Please don't," Wesley interjected. "You'll just encourage him."

"Spike?" She looked into his piercing blue eyes and accepted his strong, long-fingered grip on her palm. "I'm Buffy. You're not on the force any more, so what' your interest here? Are you, like, a private investigator."

"You might say that." Spike tilted his head. Buffy had never realized that such a simple gesture could look so insolent.

Pryce moved to step between them, and he turned that cold look on Buffy. She was disregarding his wishes about Harker, but, well, that was his problem. She wanted to understand Harker's situation for herself, and her sergeant was clearly too emotionally involved to give an objective assessment. Besides, she had to calculate that this Spike might turn out to be a valuable ally. Perhaps moreso than Pryce, who seemed to be on the outs with the powers-that-were. It was her instinct to like Wesley, but she also knew that it could be a mistake to get too entrenched in one camp too early in her career.

At the moment, Pryce was saving most of his fuck-you looks for Spike Harker. "He's a lot like a private inquiry agent," Wesley said. "Except that to actually _be_ a P.I., he would need a license that no agency in the United Kingdom would give to a man with his record."

"Oh what now, Wyndsley? Are you going to tell Daddy on me? You won't of course. Because you need to know the things that I can tell you."

"If you have a message for me, spit it out."

"Right then. Skip the foreplay." Spike nodded and spoke one word. "Rayne."

"It's autumn in Yorkshire," Wesley answered. "Rain hardly qualifies as news."

"Ethan Rayne," Spike answered. "Your corpse."

"I know. I just thought I'd waste some of your time in exchange for your persistence in wasting mine."

"I spent a lot of time with that case."

"Oh joy," Wesley rolled his eyes at the ceiling, then said to Buffy. "It's to be Chernobyl then." Looking back at Harker, he said, "Are you warning me off, or does your message actually involve information we can use?"

"Information that's up your alley," Spike answered. "Not that you deserve it but. . ." He cast his eyes at Buffy. "Might keep the lady entertained." Then as if she weren't there, he said. "I like this one, you know. She might be good for you. Help you get your rocks off, save you from mooning over Labcoat Barbie all the livelong day."

Buffy curled her lip at Spike, deciding Pryce might have a point about him. "You're gross."

Spike turned to her and did an uncanny imitation of a SoCal valley girl accent. "Gross. Oh my God. Like, gag me with a purple smurf." Then, looking at Wesley, he reverted to his regular voice and said, "Oh, yes, she'll do nicely."

"Message?" Wesley repeated, and now his voice was less 'Fuck you,' and more 'I'd like to kill you with a teaspoon and serve your severed head with crumpets.'

"Books. I hear old Ethan liked books. I understand you might want to pay a visit to your friend Ripper."

Wesley looked as though this meant something, but his eyes narrowed. "Harker, if I find out this is a wild goose, so help me. . ."

He spread his hands, and backed away, whistling the "raindrops" song again. Wesley rolled his eyes and turned to his car. The one, Buffy noticed, that Spike had ashed on. "Oh, Wyndsley!" Spike called. Pryce stiffened but didn't turn, which seemed enough encouragement. "Three more words. Dog. Sheep. Deer."

Wesley whirled. "What?"

"You heard me," Spike answered.

"And I say again, you had _better_ not be wasting my time."

"I tremble before your idle threats. Truly, truly I do." He turned his back, dropped his cigarette, and called over his shoulder. "Ask your friend Ripper."

Wesley stared after Spike and, as soon he was gone, turned to the car, placed his hands on the roof, and kicked the tire ferociously three times. Then he smiled wanly at Buffy. "Sorry for that display."

"It's OK." She frowned after Spike. "I violently dislike that guy."

"I could tell," Pryce answered dryly, "By the way you were holding hands."

"I _shook_ his hand," she said. "And among my people? The non-stuffy people of the world? That doesn't exactly mean we're engaged."

"But it does make me wonder what exactly compels you to act friendly with someone I've specifically instructed you to avoid."

"Maybe the same thing that makes you instruct me to avoid people I could understand better if I talked to them myself."

He sighed and started to open the driver's side door. Then, seeing the ash on the roof, he scowled, wiped it off with his hand, and kicked the tire again. "Any more questions?" he asked Buffy.

"Dog, sheep, deer?"

"Nothing," he said firmly. "Harker's crazy talk."

"So you mean questions you feel like answering. All right then. You have friends named Ripper?"

He looked up at her with an almost-real smile. "Now him, you can see for yourself."

The bell on the little door jingled, as Wesley entered, and Buffy squeezed after him. The must of mildew, old paper, and binding glue hit his nostrils as keenly as ever. Wesley often felt that he didn't have much understanding of the things he loved, or why he loved them, but he had no doubts about the readers' lust that ignited every time he walked into a bookshop. At university, he had toyed with a course of study in library science, or linguistics, before settling on the more practical criminology degree. This old-book smell always made him consider the virtues of the contemplative life he had rejected.

Even before he looked at Buffy, he knew her nose would be curled up like a rabbit's, and sure enough she sniffed and frowned, then whispered, "What does this guy rip, exactly?"

The front of the shop was empty, and it struck Wesley that it might be worthwhile to play this a little close to the chest. He placed a hand on Buffy's arm and said quietly. "For now, let's pretend you don't know me. We didn't walk in together, you're just browsing. Stay close enough to listen. Try to act like you belong here." His eyes wandered to her trousers. "Insofar as that's possible. See about something in khaki, do you think?"

She nodded. "New pants, check."

He almost choked. "Really, Summers, that's a private matter." Then he remembered that to an American pants _were_ trousers, rather than underwear. Fortunately, before he had time to explain his confusion, Rupert Giles came from the back of the store with an armful of books stacked as high as his face. He nodded at Buffy, who immediately went to a bookshelf near the entrance and did a more or less convincing job of scanning the titles. Wesley approached Giles and put on as jovial a tone as he could muster. "Ripper, old boy, let me help you with those."

Lifting half the stack revealed Giles' genuine smile of delight. "Wesley, what a marvelous surprise. It's been much much too long."

"You know the life of a working man." Wesley felt a stab of guilt at playacting around someone he really thought of as a friend. Bugger policing in a small town, he thought, and wondered if Giles even recalled his profession. Most likely he did, but then, Giles sometimes seemed to live with his head in the clouds, and Wesley decided not to remind him right away. "Too many books, never enough time."

"Of course." Giles set his burden down on the counter, and Wesley put his beside them. "Now," Giles said, rubbing his hands together. "How is your charming American lady friend?"

"Sorry?" Wesley stammered, and almost blew his cover by looking at Buffy. She at least had the presence of mind to keep browsing, although he wished she would have noticed that the books she was looking at were in French. _Well, maybe she reads French,_ he thought, and then, _An American? Not bloody likely. _

Fortunately, Giles was leafing through one of the volumes on the table, and didn't notice the gesture at all. "The lady professor from Texas, who used to come in with you?" he said. "Fran, was it? I was just thinking of her, because we received some lovely illustrated volumes on the history of dance. That was her interest, was it not?"

"Fred," Wesley corrected. "And, yes, she likes ballet." He was unable to suppress a smile at the image it gave him of Winifred Burkle's graceful form twirling under a spotlight. "Dance and theoretical physics and forensic science. And nineteenth century children's literature. Quite a nimble mind Fred has." Now Buffy was definitely looking at him, and he thought, _Oh bugger, me and my mouth._ He wondered how much he would be able to play off as a performance. Then it also occurred to him that if Buffy ended up going out for drinks with Fred, it couldn't hurt for her to have heard this. Finally it occurred to him that he was a thirty-five year old man investigating a homicide and not, in fact, a thirteen-year old boy with a juvenile crush, and that he really really needed to, as Buffy would doubtless phrase it, get a life.

Giles brightened. "I have quite a number of volumes on all of those subjects, actually." Leaning across the counter, man to man, he said in a confidential tone. "If there is any occasion for which a gift might be in order."

Wesley felt simultaneously better and worse. Better because he realized that a bookseller's gestures of friendship to a regular customer – a customer with very low sales resistance, and a trust-fund padded income -- inevitably had ulterior motives of their own. Worse for much the same reason. "Perhaps not today. Perhaps not ever, actually," he sighed, now trying to mask his own earlier uncertainty as romantic disappointment. Which, when it came to Fred Burkle, was not particularly difficult to fake. Confidentially, and rather hoping Buffy couldn't hear, he said, "Today she told me I reminded her of her cousin Cory from Oklahoma."

"Oh," said Giles sympathetically, "Well, they sometimes marry cousins in Oklahoma, correct?"

"And in the line of Wyndam-Pryce," Wesley said dryly. "But somehow I don't think she views Cory as a dark mysterious stranger type." And then, hoping he had established a sufficient level of intimacy to encourage confidence without having to delve any deeper into his own affairs, Wesley turned to the books on the counter and ran his finger over the spines. Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, all the volumes. A nice leather-bound edition but nothing remarkable. "So have you seen any interesting collections come through here in the past few months?"

"Interesting?" Giles removed his glasses and started to rub them with a pocket handkerchief. "Interesting in what way?"

"Just. . .interesting. The sort of thing that you know it when you see it?"

Giles' eyebrows went up as he replaced his glasses. "Well, yes," he said. "We do get a bit of that sort of thing. I hadn't imagined it would be up your alley, but. . .perhaps for the lady. Or. . .not for a lady, we have that as well."

"No." Wesley shook his head. "I didn't mean pornography. At least. . ." he paused. "I suppose it could be pornography, but. . ." _Exactly when,_ he thought, _did I get so bad at the detective part of detective work?_

"This is an official inquiry, then," Giles said, stiffly. "I'm disappointed in you, Wesley. I thought we were friends. Why don't you just come out and ask me if I knew Ethan Rayne?"

"Did you?" Wesley prompted.

"Of course," Giles answered. "And I know who killed him."

TBC


	3. Strangers in a Strange Land

Summary: Human AU; Buffy Wesley might be good cops, Spike might be a bad one, and various other Buffyverse folks make appearances. Previous chapters linked here.

III. _Strangers in a Strange Land_

It took Buffy a while to notice that the books were in French. She didn't suppose this was a good sign of her surveillance skills. But she kept looking. As long as this Ripper guy didn't try to speak French to her, she thought she would be okay. And Wesley seemed to be keeping him occupied. She didn't get what he was up to at first. It just seemed like a friendly conversation, but other than having her suspicions about the sergeant and Dr. Burkle confirmed - _a nimble mind?_, _cousin Cory from Oklahoma?_; oh, Wes had it bad, and it wasn't good. But then she saw that he was trying to draw the ironically-named Ripper into a conversation about his trade, to see if there might be anything to Harker's hints without raising his friend's suspicions unnecessarily. Then Ripper seemed to think Wesley was talking about porn, which was amusing. And then Buffy felt a pair of eyes on her, from the back of the store.

She replaced the volume on the shelf - _Les Fleurs du Mal_. Bad Flowers? – and tried to catch Wesley's eye, but he and Ripper were still going on about the porn. It certainly didn't have anything to do with the case they were supposed to be working. So she wandered to the back of the store, where a dark-haired boy huddled against the wall. She glanced at the shelves as she made her way back. Was there a children's collection back there? How long had that kid been there without making a sound? And why exactly was he looking at her with such interest?

A few feet from him, she stopped and looked at the shelf. Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury. So this was science fiction. The kind of thing her friend Xander used to haul around in high school, and the kid. . .well, at closer glance, he was older than he had appeared to be. A teenager. Maybe even older, maybe Buffy's age. But he was small, with dark intense eyes that were fixed on her. "Hi," she said. "I didn't even hear you in here. Are these the books you like?"

"Some of them." He held up a paperback. "This is the best one. I've read it maybe twenty times." She saw the cover, Robert Heinlein, _Stranger in a Strange Land_. That was one Xander had read, too, and Buffy tried to remember what he had said about it, why it had stuck in her mind. Oh yeah. _Heinlein was the most breast-fixated author in history. Not that this is a bad thing, you understand, only an observation._ Somehow that didn't seem like the way to start a conversation. But then there was his accent. "That describes us a little, doesn't it?" she said. "You're from America too?"

He shook his head, then paused. "Well, originally from California. But we moved when I was a kid. So mostly Toronto."

"And you came here?" she prompted. "With your family?"

"A friend," he said. "I met a friend. I don't like your questions. I don't think you know French."

"_Je parle-vous français_," she objected, hoping he wouldn't require any further evidence of the fact.

"You just said 'I you speak French,'" the kid answered.

"Well, I had a science teacher named Miss French once," she said, and went with a pleasing smile that she hoped would cover a multitude of sins.

"You came in with that policeman," said the boy. "I know you're lying, I just don't know why."

"Oh," said Buffy, "I – wow, he did not tell me he was a policeman." She shook her head. "The thing is," she leaned closer to the boy. "He's married. And, I mean, we're not doing anything wrong. But you know how it is. Small town."

"I know who he is," said the kid. "He's not married. His dad is famous."

"Wow" she shook her head. "He's not married and he told me he was. The bastard."

"That doesn't even make any sense. Besides, you're kind of famous too. You were in the paper." He scowled. "I'm not telling Mr. Giles or anything but don't lie to me. I don't like it when people lie."

"Me neither," Buffy admitted. "I'm probably in the wrong line of work, do you think?"

He gave her a faint smile, and then she heard the bell jingling at the front door, and Wesley saying, loudly, "Maybe I'll be back for those dance books, then?"

"I'll keep an eye out," answered Ripper. (Was this Mr. Giles? Buffy wondered)

"I think that's your cue," said the boy. 

Buffy smiled at him, then edged back to the French poetry. At the front, Ripper Giles approached her with a beaming smile. "_Puis-je vous aider, mademoiselle_?"

Buffy's eyes widened and she said, "_Non! Non non non non_!" She pointed at her watch, then at the door. "_Excusez-moi, s'il-vous-plait._" And then she dashed out, looking for Wesley.

As Giles watched her leave, the boy emerged from the back. "Oh," said Giles. "Jonathon. Good God, you frightened me." He frowned. "Was that one of your friends? From your, um, chatting rooms?"

The boy shrugged. "Strange girl. She tried to talk to me. I don't think she spoke any English though."

"Yes," said Giles. "Well, your lunch break is almost over, don't you think?"

"I'll get back in the back," Jonathon Levenson agreed.

Giles looked after the girl and shook his head. "Those really were some remarkable trousers."

Wesley scowled when Buffy came out of the store. "I lost sight of you for a bit there. Did you manage to hear ?"

"Man, I totally don't think he believed I was French."

"Yes." Wesley's mouth twitched. "That was perhaps more undercover than strictly necessary. I just thought it might be preferable not to come on with the full policeman's assault. And have an extra pair of ears." He frowned and repeated. "How much did you hear?"

"Up to the part where he thought you were trying to buy porn for Dr. Burkle. Which, you know. . .direct approach is not always bad. At least she wouldn't mix you up with cousin Cory again."

"Oh God," Wesley sighed. "I suppose that's a very bad sign?"

"Speaking for all women everywhere, as I am so often called upon to do?" She shrugged. "I'm not gonna lie, it's not a check in the 'harbors a secret crush on you' column. But maybe she doesn't know how you feel."

"Everybody else seems to. Including people I've just met, people I barely know, and, oh yes, mortal enemies."

"So maybe she does know, and she's just avoiding the issue. It's kind of like when my friend Xander wanted to ask me to Spring Fling, but our friend Willow. . ." She saw the pained look on his face. "Not really with the helping, am I?"

Wesley shook his head. "On the more pleasant subject of mortal enemies? I'm afraid mine has led us astray. So it doesn't matter what you heard, or whether Rupert Giles thinks you're French. Or any of it. Giles knew Ethan Rayne as an occasional customer, nothing more. Rayne didn't buy or sell anything unusual in the months before his death. In fact, his collection was mostly old American Westerns, detective novels, and other pulps. Certainly nothing worth killing for."

"So that's it?" Buffy blinked. "Can we just talk more about your love life, then?"

"Oh, we should be so lucky." He made a face. "Better idea. Let's get something to eat, then take you back to the station, and finish your paperwork. I'll get you a tour of the facilities. Maybe Fred can show you around forensics. And you can spend the rest of the day reading up on the files. Then you can take off at five. . .maybe a little before, and, well, amuse yourself."

"Clothes shopping?" she suggested.

"May I once again emphasize the advisability of khaki?"

If Buffy's first day was all about paperwork, the rest of the week was about drowning in documents. Liam had warned her that most of a detective's routine consisted of filling out forms and going through files. And here, it seemed like a detective constable's job was more or less to do what her sergeant told her to. So Wesley gave her the Rayne file, and several others, and told her to look through them.

"For what?" she asked.

"Familiarize yourself with the way we do things. And bring your own experience to the table. As the superintendent says. Fresh eyes." Then he left her to do it, and went off to do. . .well, she wasn't exactly sure what. Something seemed a little off about the whole thing. She certainly wouldn't have expected the Wesley Wyndam-Pryce that she met on the first day to start quoting Quentin Travers' instructions. She had hoped that there would be more opportunities for field interviews, and soon. But the only conclusion she could reach was that he had decided she was a bad risk. She hadn't helped him out on the visit to Giles' store, and he had decided to cut his losses and do whatever he would usually do without letting Buffy get too much in the way. He was perfectly civil to her, taking her to lunch at the pub most days, and letting her tease him about his crush on Fred Burkle without getting too bent out of shape. It was simply clear that he didn't take her seriously as a police officer, and she would have to prove him wrong.

So she determined to tackle the case files with the benefit of fresh eyes. But once she started thinking "fresh eyes" it reminded her of "fresh blood." Which raised the spectre of William Harker and his mocking looks. _Forget about him,_ she thought, but of course, there was no way for that to happen. She was looking at his name on every page of every case file. Some of them were, as Wesley had predicted, uncharted country. An initial description of the crime, reports from forensics and the evidence lab, and precious little else. Others had pages of notes, in a hand that seemed sloppy at first, but, once she got used to its few quirks, revealed a strikingly methodical mind. After going through a few of these, she began to have a feel for Harker's thought processes. He liked charts, and arrows, and lists of questions that seemed to lead to other questions. Wesley's "Chernobyl" description did not seem quite fair after all.

The odd thing was that Buffy could find no rhyme or reason to the cases that got a long paper trail and the ones that didn't. Wesley had spoken of cases that fed into Harker's "pet obsessions," but what in the world could unite an armed robbery gone wrong with an old-age pensioner smothered for her inheritance with a stabbing in a bar fight? Stranger still, the Rayne case did not seem to be among those with a significant paper trail. Spike had said that he did a lot of work on the case, but there was nothing to the file besides the bare minimum of details: Lifelong Yorkshire resident Ethan Rayne bludgeoned to death in his own living room, weapon unknown, no signs of forced entry, nothing missing. Mention of a few family members and their confirmed whereabouts on the night of the killing. Nothing about Rupert Giles, nothing about books. Curiouser and curiouser. Did that mean Harker had followed up on the case after he left the force? Or that he really had sent them on a wild goose chase, and if so, why?

This all led back to the issue of why he had left the force in the first place. She quickly gave up on trying to get information from her colleagues. Wesley just scowled and made another of his cryptic remarks. Anyone else seemed to get uncomfortable fast, and launched into a vaguely defensive statement that they were sure he "hadn't done any of those things," while deflecting Buffy's attempts to find out what those things had been. Travers had said not to believe what she read in the papers, but she certainly had no idea where else she was supposed to learn about it. So her days of wading through files led to nights of Internet searches, which didn't leave her any more comfortable with the situation, or much more enlightened about it.

The papers first mentioned William Harker as a successful and decorated officer, involved in several major drug busts, and later in some high-profile homicide investigations. None other than Wesley Wyndam-Pryce was quoted as saying that Harker was, "A little unconventional, but gets the job done." Then about a year before, the paper started to run editorials asking questions about the investigation into the murder of a local artist named – could this be right? – Drusilla Moon. Harker seemed to have known the victim, and he had not been officially attached to the case. No, the sergeant there was – big surprise – Pryce. However, the paper hinted that Harker had been involved in manufacturing and planting evidence against a man named Lindsey McDonald. McDonald was an American attorney, working out of the local office of an international conglomerate called Wolfram Hart. He and several of his colleagues at the firm had accused Harker of brutality, after which stories about Harker's violent temper and disregard of procedure seemed to come out of the woodwork. The local newspaper dubbed him "William the Bloody," and the story had been picked up as far away as Manchester and even London. Harker was suspended

And then the story went away. The lawsuit never materialized, McDonald never came to trial. It was as though the whole thing had never happened. Weird. Even weirder, Buffy could find no evidence that Lindsey McDonald had ever existed. She looked up Wolfram Hart, which had business concerns all over northern England, but she found no mention of anyone by that name. It occurred to her to call the firm's office and ask for him, at least see if she got a reaction. But when an over-polite secretary with an American accent answered the phone, Buffy lost her nerve and hung up. She didn't know what it was about, but that place gave her a wiggins.

So she went back to Harker's files, trying once again to make heads or tails of them. The situation was that much trickier because the constable who had worked under Harker for the two years previous to his resignation was on his honeymoon in Majorca. On Friday afternoon of the first week, DC Gurt finally gave a call in response to Buffy's repeated messages. He didn't exactly sound enthused, but at least he let her explain herself before he started to laugh. "Listen, love. Just because my name is down as working those cases with Harker, doesn't mean I knew a damn thing about what he was up to. You think Wyndsley plays his cards close to the chest?" Gurt whistled. "Nobody had a bloody clue what Harker was doing. And as long as it was getting results and not getting the wrong names in the paper, no one complained."

"Well," Buffy began, "I've been looking through the files. . ."

"The files? Harker's files. Oh, that's a good one. Just a moment, love." He then did a poor job of covering the mouthpiece as he yelled, "This is a grand one, honey! I've got the new American bird on the phone, and she's been looking at Spike Harker's files!" Coming back on line, he said, "Sorry, hope this hasn't take up too much of your time. Those files aren't real."

"What?"

"I'm sorry nobody told you. I'm sure Wyndsley or the superintendent should have done. Nothing that meant anything to Harker went in any file. I hope you haven't spent too much time with those."

It was Friday evening, and Buffy had the office almost to herself, but still, somebody would probably have noticed if she had started throwing things, then and there. So she just packed every single one of the useless files into a box, took the box into the office that Wesley had already vacated, and dumped them all over his immaculate desk and into his chair. Then she went to the parking lot and drove her bike very very fast back to her flat, where she started throwing things. And this was the night she was supposed to meet Fred Burkle for a drink. Well, Buffy would have a thing or two to say to her about Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, and it would just serve him right for wasting her time.

TBC


	4. Lucky Shots

"The first time is always nerve-wracking," said Wesley with an encouraging smile. "It has taken me quite a few years to develop my current level of skill. You shouldn't expect the thing to feel natural in your hand right away. That comes with time. Time and a lot of practice."

Fred Burkle gave him her sweetest smile, which turned out to be very very sweet. "You sure know how to put a girl at ease. How long have you been into this?"

"Since I was thirteen or fourteen, at least. I suppose I picked it up from my father. In this country, it's considered a rather strange enthusiasm. For club members only, and they're very choosy about who gets through the door. That's why it took me so long to bring you here." He eyed her curiously. "Are you quite sure you're ready? The equipment and everything?"

She shrugged. "Now or never." Then she put on her earplugs, and he put on his, and Fred raised her arm, looked down the sight of the pistol, and pumped six shots straight into the center of the target.

Wesley felt his jaw drop, and then he had to shift his legs to avoid the onset of another physical reaction. "Good God," he said, pulling off the headset so that he could hear. "You're a natural." Then, as she removed her headgear and grinned sheepishly, he said. "No, you're not a natural, you're a ringer. You're from Texas, you've been target shooting since you were a babe-in-arms, and now I feel like a complete ass."

"It's all right." She patted his shoulder. "I could have said something before. But you're so cute when you're pompous." Smiling, she stopped to reload the gun. _Pompous?_ thought Wesley, and then immediately, _Cute?_

For the next thirty minutes, they took turns at a friendly competition, which was pretty close to a draw. She was damn good, but then, he had been recommended to her as the department's resident gun nut for a reason. Marksmanship wasn't a skill at any particular premium in a police force where sidearms were a rarity. Wesley was very much in favor of the firearms laws, but he didn't see that gun crime bore any great relationship to well-regulated sport shooting. Spending Friday evening at the target range was just like a high powered game of darts.

Wesley was happy to share his enthusiasm with anyone else who played by the rules. But discovering he shared it with Fred made him weak in the knees. Every time he watched her reload the gun, he thought about how amazing it would feel just to grab her and push her against the wall of their booth, and, well, just look at those lips, he bet she gave amazing blow jobs, he had never been with an American girl but he heard that they gave a lot of head and they expected to get it, too, and that was something he could definitely deal with, he could be on any end of her, any way, any time, and could she still be holding that gun while they did it because that was hot and good God was he the sickest fuck who ever breathed, of course not, some of the things he had seen on the job, why did he persist in believing that his own stupid schoolboyish lusts had any significance in the range of sins that human beings were capable of? And suddenly he realized it was almost eight o'clock, and Fred needed to clear out of here.

He took off the headgear again, signaled for Fred to remove hers, and said, "Aren't you supposed to be meeting Buffy in a few minutes?" He wondered if the constable could still be counted on to put in a good word for him, after he had buried her in paperwork for a week. But he fought the stab of apprehension and guilt. Buffy didn't know what was going on, that was the whole point. And that was why he was running things this way. The fewer of his people involved, the better, and praise God maybe the whole bloody mess would be over soon. Then if that happened, he swore to himself, he would ask Fred on a real date, or buy her some eighteenth-century erotica from Giles's shop, or just grab her and kiss her like both their lives depended on it, or whatever the hell it took. And most likely he would end up looking a complete ass, but he would be the ass who brought down Wolfram Hart, and just tonight she had told him he was cute, even if the way she said it was only three words away from "pompous."

Fred tied her unruly hair into a ponytail as she smiled at him. "I'm going right now. But listen. " She paused, and swallowed, tilted her head and focused her brown eyes on him intensely. "You and I need to have a real talk. I've been putting this off for way too long, but there are some things you ought to understand."

"Oh," Wesley said, and the weakness in his knees this time was not such a happy thing. "Yes of course. Is this something I'll be happy to hear?"

"I don't know." She looked down. "I'm not really sure how you're going to feel." This was enough for Wesley, who could not imagine such a statement applying to any sentiment that belonged even in the same general category as, "I'd like us both to be naked now, with guns."

"Well then," he said quietly. "Can it wait? This has been a bugger of a week, and I am not entirely sure of what I am prepared to deal with right now." A long look passed between them and with it, he thought, an understanding.

"All right," she said. "Another time."

"Right," he answered. "You and Buffy have fun. Drink some watery beer and eat something processed, in honor of the mother country."

She stuck her tongue out, then headed for the door. He reloaded, and turned to the target. _Jesus, Pryce, could you be any more chickenshit?_ He doubted very much that the conversation Fred had alluded to would ever occur. They both understood how things stood. He tried to decide whether it was better this way. He put every round right through the bullseye, and he wondered why this didn't make him feel the least bit better.

And then she was beside him. Long legs and heels.

"Nice shot," she observed. "Nothing like a gun for healthy channeling of your inner rage."

"American women," he said. "Everywhere I turn these days. I feel so blessed."

"She's not worth it, you know. Those flirty, girly types are always frigid, as you'll find out one day. Assuming you even really want to fuck a titless wonder like that in the first place."

"I understood this was to be a professional conversation." Raising the gun and lining the sight up with the target, he said, "Well, I suppose it depends on your profession. So if you are, in fact, the ten-quid whore that those shoes suggest, then your opening was quite appropriate, and I apologize."

"I understand you've been asking questions about my organization."

"Yes, Miss Morgan, and I understand that each of us has something that the other one wants."

"Please, Wes," she said, "No formality needed. You can call me Lilah."

Spike couldn't believe his luck. He had run out of work to do for paying clients, leads to follow up on his own, and so he had come to the Bronze Harp in search of random lowlifes to work over, just for the hell of it. But his heart wasn't really into bloodsports right now, and besides, his hand still hurt like hell from last night. _They say never hit a man with a closed fist,_ he thought, rubbing his swollen knuckle _but it is, on occasion, hilarious._ Of course, if anyone asked, the other guy had started it. If there was one skill Spike Harker had cultivated in a decade as one of Her Majesty's Finest, it was getting the other guy to start it.

But tonight he was bored with all that, so bored he even found himself getting nostalgic for his days of filling out fake paperwork. He liked to think of his meticulously bogus reports as a form of artistic expression, sometimes even fancied that Drusilla would have approved. He could hear her voice now: "Truth resides in the act of creation, and the boldest lie, truly expressed, locates itself in the darkest truth. It is only through the process of visualizing the location that we actualize the knowledge. . ." At about which point, he would break in to say, "So when you're painting burning baby goldfish flying at your eyeballs, it's like they're more real than the burning flying goldfish that aren't actually there." She would smack him, in play but it would really hurt, and he would grab her hand and pull her against him and remind her that it was her fault for spewing that academic mumbo-jumbo at a bloke who had to work for a living, but he wouldn't mind at all of she would keep making the pictures, because those were bloody cool, and she would pronounce him a Philistine and push him back on the bed and. . .

. . .and this was the part of tonight where he got lucky, because before his mind could work past the Drusilla who was warm and alive and alluringly barking crazy, to the Drusilla who lived in crime scene photos and bags of evidence and words like "the decedent," "the victim," "the body," he saw the blonde girl sitting at the bar. She gave him something else to think about; anything else would do. She might be a source of information. And, barring that, he could think of a lot of other uses for her. Yes, he could think of those.

"How goes it, fresh blood?" Slipping onto a stool beside her, he signaled the bartender. "Buy you a drink?"

Buffy Summers stared back, and it turned out that those green eyes could get cold. They gave Spike a nice little shiver. "It goes fine, mental defective," she answered. "Why are you talking to me, like we're some kind of talking buddies?"

The bartender swooped down and put a pint of India Pale Ale in front of each of them. "Good question, Angel cakes," he said to Buffy. "But for some reason you girls always succumb to the Blondie Bear, so my advice is, don't fight it. The drinking part, I mean."

"Thanks, Lorne," Buffy sighed, then called after him, "You're sure you haven't seen Fred in here tonight?"

"Not a shimmer," Lorne answered.

Her eyes traveled to the clock behind the bar, and Spike leaned closer. "Shall I compare thee to a Summers' day? Thou art more lovely, and more stood up. Who's this Fred bloke, Summers'- day? I'll have to kick his arse." _More like buy him a drink._. Some stupid git had left this bird alone in a pub on a Saturday night, a bird Spike really thought he could fancy. More than he had liked a girl in a long time, maybe since. . .but no, that was heresy. He wouldn't even allow the thought. _She's a shaggable piece, Will Harker, but don't start imagining more than that. For her sake or yours._

"Fred as in Doctor Burkle Fred" Buffy clarified. "The one you called Labcoat Barbie"

"What" Spike cried, annoyed at himself. So much for that little scenario. "Somebody told me all American lady-cops swung that way, but I didn't think you "

She leveled a gaze at him. "It's not a date, moron. I just thought we could talk, have a little ex-pat fun. Plus I can feel things out, maybe lay some groundwork for Sergeant. . . for Wesley."

Spike groaned. "Don't."

"Don't what? He obviously likes her. She seems to like him. And besides, maybe he would be a little less, well, uptight? If he was, you know - getting some."

"Don't" Spike repeated. "Don't pity him. Old Wyndsley doesn't really want that girl. Oh, he _thinks_ he does, but if he actually got his hands on her, his brain would explode. Not to mention, other parts. The boy needs his Venus de Milo exactly where she is. On a pedestal. He'll admire her from afar, and let all that beautiful frustration build up until he can't take it. Then he'll find the exactly wrong kind of girl to shag, and when that crashes and burns, he'll drink too much Scotch and get weepy about how he's not capable of love."

Buffy stared. "Wow" she said"You really do think you know Wesley."

"Know him" Spike repeated. "I used to _be_ him."

"You" Buffy repeated, disbelieving. "Now _that_ is a story I need to hear."

"In good time. But it'll cost you." Leaning close, Spike said"Eventually, everything does."

Buffy moved back to allow some distance between them. "OK," she admitted, "I'm not very happy with the sergeant right now, and I wasn't even sure if I should say something nasty about him to Fred, but. . . the truth is, he's not the one I should be pissed off at. It's you!"

Spike spread his hands in his best gesture of innocence, which was easier than usual because for once, he genuinely didn't know what he had done. "The fuck did I do? Except share information I was not under the slightest damn obligation to share."

"Right," Buffy said, "And if any of that information had actually been in your _case files_, I might not have wasted the past week trying to decipher them."

"Oh," Spike said, "The files." He let that hang there for a moment because, for once, he could not muster a good defense. _Might not be the questions that are screwing with you, Harker_, he thought. _Might be her that's doing the asking._ He tried a smile, and a head tilt, because these usually helped him to get somewhere. "Think of it as an art form."

"Falsifying evidence?" she asked.

"Oh, who ever found anything useful in a case file, anyway? It's about working the scene, the witnesses, going over old ground with a fresh eye. And I gave you that tip on Ripper Giles. I didn't have to do that."

"That tip went nowhere," Buffy said. "Giles told Wesley he didn't know a thing."

"Told him _what_?" Spike demanded. "Well, he was lying."

"Everybody lies. First rule in the handbook of practical homicide." Buffy shrugged. "I guess I could tell Wesley to try him again, but he seemed convinced."

Spike shook his head, the gears shifting. "This doesn't make any damn sense. Truth or lie, I don't know, but when I talked to Giles, he was dying to tell this story. Any detective worth his salt would have got it out of him in about five minutes. Wyndsley's a poncey bugger, but he used to be a decent investigator. I guess without my influence to keep him on his toes. . ."

"No," Buffy said, quietly, and Spike saw her fingers tighten around the glass. "Everybody does lie. Including cops. Giles didn't lie to Wesley, Spike. Wesley lied to me."

"Get your coat, Summers-day." Spike said, hopping off the barstool. "Let's pay a little visit to my friend the Ripper."

TBC

This section has some dialogue ripped from BtVS "Crush" and enterprising Browncoats will recognize Spike's observations on hitting with a closed fist as Mal Reynolds' from _Firefly_'s _The Train Job_. "Everybody lies" is from David Simon's _Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets_, by way of TV's _Homicide: Life on the Street_ and Meldrick Lewis. ETA: And "The fuck did I do" is, as fans of _The Wire_ know, Jimmy McNulty's trademark.


End file.
